The Newb’s Guide to Being a Hero from Destiny

Are you new to Destiny? Don’t know what any of this means? Good news! There’s a Destiny wiki that’s packed with information. Click on through for details on what Strikes are, and how Nightfall differs from Weekly Heroic challenges.

It’s that wonderful time when Bungie’s regular offering of high-reward Weekly Heroic and Nightfall Strike missions are rebooted (along with any raid progress made in the previous week), giving everyone a fresh chance at scoring some of the game’s sweetest and rarest loot.

This week’s chosen Strike is the hated Cerberus Vae III mission, in which up to three players hunt down a Cabal general on the sandy surface of Mars. It’s among the lengthier Strikes in Destiny, and it’s also — as Bungie revealed in its April 2 update — one of the most frequently unfinished. So much so that the developer is planning to ease the difficulty in an imminent update.

Sadly, that update hasn’t yet arrived, which means we’re stuck with the same super-challenging gauntlet. Here’s the top-line details for this week, if you just want to know what the modifiers are:

Nightfall

Epic – This is a standard Nightfall modifier. It just means there are more enemies to fight, and a greater number of Majors (the yellow health bar dudes) on the field.

Nightfall – Another standard Nightfall modifier. This one boots the entire Fireteam back to orbit if everyone is downed inside one of the revive-only respawn Darkness Zones.

Juggler – Ammo only drops for the weapons that you’re not actively using.

Weekly Heroic

Heroic

Lightswitch

Them’s the basics. But what does it all mean?

This week’s Nightfall is, frankly, a waste. There’s no elemental “burn” modifier like there usually is, meaning you don’t get any damage buffs from your Arc, Solar, and Void weapons. You also don’t take the increased damage from those elements without the burn. That’s nice, but the Strike is still too long and the final boss fight, too tedious.